“Genesis 47:7-12”

Saturday, April 25, 2020

“Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and presented him to Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. Pharaoh said to Jacob, ‘How many years have you lived?’ So Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.’ And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from his presence. So Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had ordered. Joseph provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to their little ones.”

---End of Scripture verses---

“Then Joseph brought his father Jacob and presented him to Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh.” (verse 12) When the Hebrews writer characterized Melchizedek’s blessing of Abraham after the original patriarch victoriously returned with the spoils from the “War of the Kings,” he stated: “But without any dispute the lesser is blessed by the greater” (Hebrews 7:7). Pharaoh was the supreme monarch of the dominant world empire, and yet Israel was nobler and more notable due to his exalted status in the eyes of the Lord and his extraordinary position in God’s unfolding plan to establish His own great nation and ultimately save the world through His Only Begotten Son. As we read these words nearly 4,000 years later, the name of Jacob (Israel) is a household name and his story is well-known and familiar to people all over the globe, yet we are left to surmise the identity of this unnamed Pharaoh who has long since passed into the archives of obscurity.

“This episode is one of the grand scenes of the Bible. Pharaoh was the autocratic ruler of the mightiest nation on earth; Jacob was the patriarchal head of God's Chosen Race, through whom redemption would come to all mankind. That Jacob was fully conscious of his own status in that situation is evident in what he did. As long as Egypt sheltered and protected the covenant people, that long, God blessed and protected Egypt. But when another king arose who ‘knew not Joseph,’ and when Egypt turned viciously upon the Israel of God, the heavenly blessing was withdrawn, and one disaster after another overwhelmed them. One may wonder if Pharaoh appreciated this blessing. To him, Jacob might have seemed to be merely an old man seeking relief from the starvation that threatened to wipe out his family, but the hand of the Almighty was upholding Jacob, and the blessing of God was surely his to bestow.” (James Burton Coffman)

“Pharaoh said to Jacob, ‘How many years have you lived?’” (verse 8) The protracted years of a rugged life must have shown upon Israel’s weathered face. “So Jacob said to Pharaoh, ‘The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty…” (verse 9) “Here is a glimpse of the way Jacob viewed his life. Neither he nor his father ever owned any of the land of promise except the burial place at Machpelah and a few acres around Shechem. ‘They looked for the city that hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God’ (Hebrews 11:10). Jacob's word here is a testimonial to his acceptance of the promise God made to Abraham, and of his absolute belief in the ultimate fulfillment of it. None of the patriarchs viewed the world as their permanent dwelling place, nor the earth as the true home of the soul. The mightiest king on earth had just given him a deed to Goshen, but Jacob was still a ‘pilgrim.’” (James Burton Coffman)

“Few and unpleasant have been the years of my life…” (verse 9) Most of us would view the span of 130 years to be an incredibly long life. Especially considering that, “the days of our life…contain seventy years, or if due to strength, eighty years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; for soon it is gone and we fly away” (Psalm 90:10). But Israel had a keen awareness that the days of any human life are but a brief interlude in comparison to the endless expanse of eternity. If we make it our life’s ambition to please the One that will judge us all one day very soon, we can look forward in earnest anticipation to that moment we “fly away” to the arms of the loving Lord who is ready to receive and embrace us for all eternity. But if we squander our “few” years in selfish and useless pursuits that spurn the Lord’s will and desires for us, at our departure we “will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9).

“Few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning.” (verse 9) Jacob’s grandfather Abraham lived to the age of 175 (Genesis 25:7) and his father Isaac was 180 years old when he died (Genesis 35:28), and he did not anticipate achieving their longevity. Considering the grief he suffered during the decades of animosity from his brother and father-in-law, and the foolish and sinful exploits of his sons, it seems that Israel longed for that final departing flight for the realms above, yet he would live an additional 17 years (verse 28).

“So Joseph settled his father and his brothers and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had ordered.” (verse 11) “Rameses is the name of one of the two store cities built by the children of Israel on the east of the Delta… The name given to it was probably that of the Pharaoh of the oppression, Rameses II. If so, the description of this region, where Joseph’s brethren are settled, by the name of ‘the land of Rameses,’ is, strictly speaking, an anachronism, i.e. a chronological anticipation of facts, the country being denoted by a name which it came to bear two centuries later. It is a very natural thing for the Israelite writer to do; and can hardly be regarded in the light of a literary error.” (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges)

Please read Genesis 47:13-19 for tomorrow.

Have a great day!

-Louie Taylor

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